Jordan's B-day, Easter, a Doomed Vacation, and Emma's Baptism

Now that's a title. Obviously I have not blogged in a long while....too long. So now I have several topics to cover. I think I'm going to cover more than I listed in the title, and I'll mention them in whatever order I feel like too. Because....it's my blog.

Jordan has been inducted into the National Junior Honor Society at the Middle School! I attended the ceremony the week before spring break. This is a huge accomplishment, and he worked SO hard to achieve this. He is actually taking an advanced math class at school, and was determined to get straight As again. I'm proud of you, Jordan!!!

I guess that I should mention Jordan is officially a teenager, as of April 11th. However, he's been ACTING like a teenager for the past year, so this is nothing new to me. If anything, I think he just eats more. Below is a picture of my favorite teen opening one of his gifts. (I can say that because the other kids aren't teens yet!) He LOVES the ipod that Uncle Jeff gave him, who actually flew in from California for our family party a few weeks ago. It was wonderful spending time with you, Jeff!! We've been loading lots of MonsterHunter episodes on the ipod (mega-jaws was a real winner - lol). We celebrated Jordan's birthday at Papa Wade and Grandma Joanie's house. This picture was taken at Dan and Jane's house during Jordan's THIRD b-day party.



This year we stayed home for Easter (instead of going to Gatlinburg) and had a wonderful time with family. We visited Dad and Mom in New Carlisle for 3 days, and totally trashed their house (but I did help clean it up). I think we ate all their food too. Well, actually, JORDAN ate all their food! Mom and I walked about 6 miles!

On Sunday, we attended church with our friends. I'm still in awe of the huge sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us, by paying the penalty for our sins and making a way for us to have reconciliation with God. Sometimes the enormity of Christ's sacrifice is hard to comprehend; especially that God would come to Earth as a man, out of love for His people.

During the afternoon, we went to Dan and Jane's house for Easter dinner. The kids had their traditional Easter egg hunt. Since Jordan is a teenager, now he qualifies to hide the eggs! Jesse and Jordan did a great job hiding the eggs, and I think the kids found all of them. We'll see if Jane finds any when she's gardening. Remember the year Holly and Jeff hid the eggs? Jane was finding them in the garden for several YEARS after that!!!

Emma was baptized last Sunday at church!! The child made a profession of faith several years ago, but lately has had a strong urge to be baptized. I was concerned that she was too young, but she fully understands that her sins separated her from God and that asking Jesus to save her from her sins provided a way that she could be 'right' before God. Emma wanted to be obedient to Jesus by being baptized, and she wanted to be a witness to others of the spiritual decisions that she has made. She actually understands more than I did at her age. I gave her a spiritual journal, and I hope she starts journaling her thoughts and dreams in it. We all wrote little notes of encouragement in it for her.

Now I suppose I should write about the doomed vacation day. Since we stayed in town over spring break, Rich and I thought that we should take the kids to the zoo on Friday. We wanted it to be a special day that they would remember. LOLOL. He decided to take off half a day from work. We got to the zoo around 12:00, and ALL the parking lots were full! I've NEVER seen the zoo that full of people. After driving around for a while, we decided to change our plans a bit. I got the bright idea of going to Krohn Conservatory to see the butterfly show. We went through the conservatory, and found out that the butterfly show didn't start until the next day. Figures.

After eating a picnic lunch in the Presidential Grove next to the conservatory, Rich thought it would be fun to go up to Fort Ancient. We haven't been there in years, and it sounded interesting. We headed up towards Lebanon, and found out that Fort Ancient was closed for the season! I was ready to go home at this point, but Rich wanted to go boating at Lake Cowan, which was 15 miles to the east. We went to the lake and rented a pontoon boat for a couple of hours. Only it broke down...in the middle of the lake.

You would think that we were stranded on a desert island without food. Fortunately, I had brought the leftovers from our lunch on the boat, because suddenly the kids were starving! Eventually we were towed by a little rowboat until they could get another pontoon for us. I guess it was fun on the lake. Kind of fun, anyway. We saw lots of geese, herons, and other lake creatures during our solitary time on the lake (not the loch ness monster, although the topic DID come up when the boat broke down). The kids took turns driving the pontoon. Jordan was especially excited to drive (I'm not ready for this)! I think all the kids like driving the boat. Look at the smile on Josh's face!! The lake was bigger than I thought. It had a small island, where geese were nesting. I think we counted almost 20 geese. Not a good island to explore! The lake wasn't that crowded. Maybe next time we'll take fishing poles, and see what we can catch - other than water lilies. At least we finished out the day by eating at the ice cream parlor in Lebanon. That was delicious; it wasn't closed; and nobody spilled anything! I've got to include this picture of Emma steering the boat also. Toothless smiles are so cute!!

Birthday Party and an Easter Egg Hunt

I hiked in the woods today before it started raining, and there were trout lilies and trillium blooming. There were Dutchman's Breeches blooming in the sunnier areas. In some places, the floor of the woods looked like a carpet of yellow flowers. Spring is definately my favorite time of the year, because of the beautiful wildflowers. It seems so hopeful to finally see tiny flowers blooming where the woods were barren and frozen during winter. Bleeding Heart and Virginia Bluebells are starting to bloom in my garden. I hope the predicted cold snap doesn't damage the flowers.

I filmed Emma opening her American Girl doll on her birthday. Since it was a combined gift, she wouldn't have had much to open on her actual birthday if we waited until the weekend when all the family got together. Now it's on film for everyone to enjoy :) I know everyone is admiring my wonderfully talented and creative method of gift-wrapping (lolol). It was just such a big box. I don't think she ever noticed the gift wasn't actually wrapped.

It was wonderful seeing Jeff for the party last weekend! Hope you have a great vacation in China, Jeff!! Take lots of pictures.

The boys went to a Boy Scout campout last weekend for both Friday and Saturday nights, ending Sunday morning. The house was so quiet....for a while at least. I decided to let the girls each invite a friend over for Friday night. We had such a fun time. The girls are so cute. They played dress-up for a while, then we all watched "The Secret Garden." Wonder if they'll want to read the book. Books are almost always better than the movie version. Saturday afternoon, we went to an Easter egg hunt. The girls got their faces painted, and then got washable tatoos. They all found a little candy. We went to a movie, then took dinner to a park. After dinner we walked for 2 miles. I think I wore them out. Here's a pic of the girls and one of their friends after the hunt.

We had a lot more fun than the boys. When they got home Sunday, I heard the entire tale of woe. First of all, it got fairly cold at night. Cold enough for them to complain. Then on Saturday night while he was sleeping, Jordan threw up all over his tent and everyone in it. Josh also didn't feel good. So....we had about 6 loads of pukey, stinky laundry when they got home. Poor kids. Bet they'll sleep good tonight. Here's a great way to end this post. Jordan's crawfish is waving good bye!!!